Mastering Levels for EDM

As a majority of music released these days has moved from physical formats to streaming, and album cycles have given way to a constant flow of singles, the role of mastering engineers in modern music has also evolved. And of course, the artists, labels and A&R’s #1 concern is always how loud a master is.

But loudness is a moving target!

In this tutorial, multi-platinum mixing and mastering engineer Luca Pretolesi details his methods for creating masters that are perfectly suited to work across multiple platforms.

He details the target loudness levels he uses for EDM and pop mixes and masters. He explains all of the different considerations you need to make when delivering masters to all the different streaming services as well as radio and CD.

Hear the difference between a dynamic master and a hyper-loud master that stands out from the rest. Then learn how to prepare alternate masters for social media and streaming platforms.

00:00:04Today we are going to talk about
Mastering Level for
EDM and Pop music.

00:00:16Before we dive in on
the conversation about
different level and different
mastering for different applications,
let's talk a little bit about
how we measure those levels.

00:00:24And today,
peak and RMS is the way to
in some way talk about
the same language between
producer, between radio
between record people and artist.

00:00:36And there's a little bit of confusion
sometimes between Peak and RMS.

00:00:40So, with today digital music
and digital stream,
the peaks, I would say they are
less important than RMS,
but we assume that we get
the 0 Db, which is the peak.

00:00:52So, the valley and the mountains and
everything are the peaks of the music.

00:00:58Now we have the average level,
which is
how much we're constantly getting
and how much you perceive.

00:01:06Than we have the crest factor which
is between the peak and the average level.

00:01:10That's the Crest Factor.

00:01:12In the middle of that
we have the RMS level.

00:01:14When you kill the entire dynamic
of the tracks
the RMS is gonna be 0,
your dynamic range is gonna be 0.

00:01:21We wanna start to go from the top down.

00:01:24In the case of EDM music that
I'm involved a lot,
we talk about a Loud Version,
a Dynamic Version,
and from there
we're gonna talk about
versions for different applications.

00:01:36But if we start from the actual mix
before we talk about the Loud version
then we're like to deliver
a mix right now
in between -9 and -10.

00:01:45And to give me enough headroom
to apply my mastering
or to have some ideas
to alter and change a
little bit of the dynamics
on the actual mix.

00:01:55Let me show you the meter.

00:01:56The meter of my choice
is Brainworx bx_meter.

00:02:00I try to always find tools
that are very easy to read,
not confusing, very clear.

00:02:05In this case we have peaks
on the extreme left and right.

00:02:10Then we have the RMS
and we have dynamic range
left on this track
right in the middle of
the meter with left and right.

00:02:18So we have also
an idea of what's going
as far as stereo placement.

00:02:22I assume that I hit 0 Db on the peaks
and then now the RMS level
left on the track
is the room that I have to
come up with the track.

00:02:32On the session I have
all the versions
that I'm going to deliver to my client.

00:02:36And after I have the pre-master version,
after the song has been approved,
then we deliver it starting from
the super loud version.

00:02:45In a EDM song they kind of
specifically want a very loud mix.

00:02:49Now, in order for me to deliver
the dynamics
and the other versions,
I need to start from the top.

00:02:55So I know how much I can go down.

00:02:57It's gonna be hard doing it
the opposite way.

00:02:59Also, it's challenging to
have a very loud track
that is not distorting,
is not clipping in a bad way.

00:03:05So I start from the loud.

00:03:07The loud may vary based on
the artist, the type of music.

00:03:10So I can go by an average as -5,
which is the average of
dance songs today,
to something very extreme like
the case of this song which is -3.

00:03:19Let's play that and
let's look on the meter.

00:03:30On this track we still
retain the 0 Db,
the peak is not changing, at all.
Sat still on 0.

00:03:37But we raise the RMS level
to over -3.

00:03:40This is -2.5.

00:03:42We've reduced the
dynamic range -2.8 to -3.

00:03:46I wanna specify, this is for
something called the drop,
which is the part with
most pressure in the song.

00:03:52We wanna bring everything to front.

00:03:54Eventually, on the verse, on the intro,
the dynamic range is going to increase,
the RMS level is gonna go down
and the peak is gonna still
remain at 0 Db.

00:04:03As today, -5 RMS is my
average level for a very loud mix.

00:04:09Today, on the DJ community, we
raise up to -4, -5, -6.

00:04:16We run around that space.

00:04:18Now, because of all the new night clubs,
all the new settings,
they are based on
DJ style of playing music,
the limiters on the club
are actually set in a way
that there is a point
of limiting starting
based on music set at -5 RMS.

00:04:35So what happens if you bring your set
that has not been mastered very loud
you're gonna have a lot of peaks.

00:04:41This means that, specially in the low-end
with sub-woofers on the club,
you're gonna easily
have problems with limiting of
the actual night club system.

00:04:49And this is gonna translate
on a track that is constantly compressed
from the club system,
or your forced to lower your level.

00:04:57That's the problem.

00:04:58If the entire DJ community
shake hands and say:
"Let's lower the level,
just go down to -9."
This problem is not gonna exist.

00:05:09Now we're gonna have all the
limiters set in a different way,
now we can go higher,
have more dynamic range.

00:05:14It's gonna be beautiful.

00:05:15But as to the reality,
that's not the case.

00:05:18From the -5 Db RMS master
I wanna create a Dynamic Master.

00:05:23The purpose is very simple,
I wanna make sure that my song
is gonna work well
regardless it's on TV, radio, Spotify,
Youtube and everywhere.

00:05:32So essentially what I do,
I take my Loud Master
and I reduce 2 Db
from the actual master.

00:05:40If I feel the tracks need less
limiting on the actual track
I go back to my Master Bus
and then I reduce the
level of limiting
that I actually have on the track.

00:05:51And in that way I can export
a more Dynamic Master.

00:05:55From that point on I'm gonna
start thinking about prioritizing.

00:05:59My track is gonna go on
radio eventually, the FM radio,
that has a very brutal limiting
that's happening,
especially, not on the digital radio,
but the old school FM station.

00:06:08They are really important still.

00:06:10I wanna give something that's
not gonna be squashed again.

00:06:12That's my Dynamic Version for radio
which as today,
is the equal to the Spotify.

00:06:19And equal to the Youtube.

00:06:20So essentially, those Masters,
FM radio
we listen on the Radio,
we listen on Spotify and Youtube,
essentially is the same masters
coming from me.

00:06:29So we have a -5 Db RMS
for the Beatport release,
we have a -7 Db for Radio station,
Spotify and Youtube.

00:06:36Now we need to think about
specific applications.

00:06:39The Instagram encoding brings
the level up +2 Db on the overall track.

00:06:44So at this point we have the
Dynamic Master fine, but it's not enough.

00:06:48We need to take the entire song
and bring the level down -2 Db.

00:06:55From that point on.

00:06:56Otherwise you're gonna have
distortion on the actual song.

00:06:59From iTunes use I'll love all the time
to have the proper "Mastered for iTunes"
which is, we take the Dynamic
version, we lower 2 Db
we do a 96 kHz, 24 bit,
amazing sounding track.

00:07:12But it's up to our client.

00:07:14And in case of EDM
tracks they tend to have
the same level, the same track
that you can download at Beatport
you're gonna fine them
at iTunes with the same level.

00:07:24The MP3 is really important.

00:07:26And I feel that sometimes,
as soon as we have a wave
we just drag it in iTunes,
we make a MP3 and it's ready to go.

00:07:32And we forget the important element
which is the MP3 encoder
that pushes the level up 0.3 Db.

00:07:41That's a big deal, in a track very loud
-5 Db RMS
really right there on the peak
of 0, we're going over the peaks,
0.3, that's a big deal,
we don't wanna do that.

00:07:53So, my approach is this:
The client chooses the track,
Loud or Dynamic,
that's gonna be the MP3
we take that and put it
on Izotope RX,
a 16 bit version,
we lower the actual peaks,
-0.3
then from there we create an MP3.
The MP3 is gonna go eventually up 0.3
and go back again to 0.

00:08:18Let's look the meters starting from
the Unmastered version.

00:08:21We're talking about.
- 10, -11 RMS level.

00:08:25From the Unmaster.
The Loud is extremely loud.

00:08:27Actually louder than normal
for my standards.

00:08:30It's at -3 RMS.

00:08:31A specific request from the client.

00:08:33That's a pure big room EDM track
that was requested.

00:08:37As far as the Dynamic version,
we go down about 3 Db from there.

00:08:42So we go -5 which is usually
my average for the Loud version.

00:08:47But once again, for the specific request,
we went down to -5
to retain a certain
sound between the two
by going down 3 Db from there.

00:08:56We have an MP3 version which is essentially
the same as the dynamic version,
which is the track that
was chose to be the MP3.

00:09:05In order to do that, we lowered 0.3
and then after the conversion,
go back to 0.

00:09:11So it has the same peaks and RMS
as the Dynamic version.

00:09:15The Spotify, for this case
since the track is really big mid-range,
with a lot of power in the middle,
I decided to just go a little
bit lower on RMS.

00:09:26And we pulled down to -7 RMS.

00:09:28Essentially, 2 Db lower
than the Dynamic version.

00:09:31It was important for this track
on Spotify, to translate in this way.

00:09:34But again, my standard is usually
Spotify equal to the Dynamic.

00:09:40Then we have the Instagram version.

00:09:42Which is not a version that
we use all the time but you might need it.

00:09:45For promotional purposes.

00:09:47And that version, because of
the encoding of instagram,
we lower between 2 and 3 Db
from the actual Dynamic.

00:09:56So if you look at my peaks now,
not only we lowered the
RMS level of the actual tracks,
but also the peaks are
at -3 in this case
to make sure there's no distortion
on our Instagram.

00:10:12From the Main Master that's been
approved we create 5 versions.

00:10:15That's how the industry is evolving
and we respect different platform,
different format,
and who knows, maybe
in 1 or 2 years from now
we're gonna have a new format,
and we're gonna do another
update of this video.

Luca Pretolesi is an italian born mixing / mastering engineer who currently lives in Las Vegas where he works at Studio DMI.

Luca specializes in Electronic Dance Music where he strives to bring fresh perspectives and focuses on bringing out the emotions behind unpolished sounds, demos and future hits.

After 20 years of experience in the industry, Luca managed to build a unique hybrid analog / digital mixing setup where we successfully blends the best of both worlds. Plug-ins allows him to work with the precision that EDM and mastering often require and his custom made pieces of hardware and high-end pro equipment help him bring a final analog touch and warmth to his sound.

Luca has worked with the biggest artists of the EDM scene such as Diplo, Major Lazer, MakJ, Lil Jon, Savoy, Gareth Emery, and Snoop Lion and more.

Watch Luca's videos on pureMix and see for yourself how Electronic Dance Music hits are made.

Very nice, but some information is quite misinformed. You can't talk digital delivery without going into TruePeak values.
Masters that are to be encoded in any way should not have peak levels above -1dbFS TP to make it safe for most mid to hi bitrate processes. Lowering a WAV to -0.3dbFS won't make much of a difference in any encoding situation and even less so if we're not even talking TP.
Great info in this video but technically it would need an update.

Forrher

2018 Sep 06

Amazing video! Tnx so much to Luca and Puremix for sharing all this knowledge!
In my opinion it's a little bit a pity and confusing that for example you took a song with extreme requests from a client. I've preferred an example of a master done like Mr.Pretolesi thinks it's the best way!

DRocksRecords

2018 Jul 30

Thanks this is very well explained and clearer for me. Very impressive loudness too lol :p

AMP Tracks

2018 Jul 08

Superb and exactly what I needed atm!
It would be great to get another short video from Luca Pretolesi where he shows some practical application how to precisely achieve those levels. I'm a bit struggling here, my levels aren't always so controlled. I doubt he's just slamming it through a brickwall at the end. ;)

valderval.o

2018 Feb 01

Hey Luca Pretolesi! How about a LUFS standard?
It's time to upgrade this video and stop forever the loudness war!.

LudoL

2017 Jul 18

The loudness war :-(

TRP777

2017 Jul 07

Excellent video tutorial!

pearlpassion

2017 Jun 13

Excellent tutorial on volume levels in todays world. In fact, not one has explained this better. Thanks...ps.. I'm sure Fab has...:)

Dazz13

2017 Jun 07

I thought Spotify and Youtube have turned there's way down to -14LUFS. So based on this video you are +7dB too loud are your lowest version.... :(

Vladimir K.

2017 Jun 03

Great! I want more tutorials from Luca. :)

composermikeglaser

2017 Jun 02

I thought this tutorial was a fantastic view into the world of levels in professional electronic music mastering and it is a perfect demonstration of what the "norm" volume is on modern tracks. Hate on the lack of dynamic range all you want, Luca is producing results that are appealing to pro level artists. Much appreciated pureMix.

lad@cslab.ch

2017 May 30

Hey I'm FOH engineer in many clubs here in Europe and never heard about this loudness normalization @ -5dbfs . Which venues use this setup?

Chrisdmcc

2017 May 28

That's insanely loud!
Interesting on instagram. Wasn't aware it was that different.

bildjan

2017 May 28

I just red that Spotify lowered their accepted RMS level to -9db, So why would you make -7db master for Spotify? (they will automatically turn it down anyway)

mataran

2017 May 28

Grazie Luca! The clearest and the most enlightening tutorial on master levels I've watched until now. I'm looking forward to seeing more tutorials from you. A la proxima!

Jrel

2017 May 27

Great and insightful information for the current EDM producer.

G.MICHAELHALL

2017 May 26

What drugs do you have to be taking to ask for a master with an RMS level at -2/-3 db? While I have endless appreciation the potential creativity of dj's, its really obvious the vast majority are not musical in the slightest and have no clue how to let dynamics be the impact/ lift in music. With those levels, its no longer is music, its a swirling wall of attention seeking shit with a 4 on the floor thump as it's only qualifying factor to be considered "music". It's not music, it loud sounds to do drugs to, balanced to the best of the ability of talented ME's/mixers. Alarming